an equation heaven sent
by timorous-scribe
Summary: Santana's first couple of months in Louisville and her extracurriculars. Inspired by the Her Space Holiday song Girl Problem, follows pretty close. Angst. Alcohol\ecstasy abuse. Cheating. More angst.


**Title**: an equation heaven sent

**Author**: timorous-scribe

**Length**: ~5.3k

**Rating**: M - drug use, swearing, mentioned sex

**Pairing(s)**: Brittana

**Spoilers:** Season 4 spoilers

**Summary**: Santana's first couple of months in Louisville and her extracurriculars. Inspired by the Her Space Holiday song Girl Problem, follows pretty close. Angst. Alcohol\ecstasy abuse. Cheating. More angst.

**Notes**: So, as the summary says, this is really kind of sad. I hate giving away the ending to a work, but here's your warning: it's not happily tied up with a little bow of resolution.

Title from Florence + The Machine's Strangeness and Charm..."an equation heaven sent, a drug for angels," which I decided was an excellent description of roll.

* * *

It's not supposed to feel like this.

She's supposed to be, like, excited "_it's happening here_," or whatever bullshit slogan is printed on the 'Welcome to Louisville' folder still laying untouched on her desk.

Santana Lopez is not supposed to be tucked away in her dorm bed at 7:34pm on a mid-semester Friday, arms wrapped around herself and sobbing into her own knees, wishing she were anywhere but fucking Kentucky.

She chokes on another sob and thanks whoever might be listening that she somehow managed to avoid having a roommate, even as a freshman, because this shit right here? This should _not_ be witnessed by anyone else.

It's already the second time this week she's completely fallen apart and it's only been three days since she got back from her 'recharge' visit to Lima—she should've known better than to take advice from Rachel Berry on _anything_. The last dissolve routine was her first hour back in the emptiness of her dorm room, when it sank in (again) how very _alone_ she is here.

Santana is well aware that she should probably, like, _deal with_ the separation issues that fuck her up, but somehow, the mind-numbing bass of the club and the chalky pill some faceless sweaty moron pressed into her palm that night were both _way_ more attractive solutions. Go figure.

Maybe it's the comedown making her feel like this, they don't call it 'Black Tuesday' for nothing, right? She tries to scoff and succeeds only in grossing herself out with snot across the thigh of her yoga pants. It's not even Tuesday, anyway.

Her phone chimes to announce a text message and Santana debates whether or not it's worth even checking. She wipes the sleeve of her McKinley Athletics hoodie across her face to at least _attempt_ to clear some of the ick away, analyzes the result with a 'smelled bad cheese' expression, then reaches for the blinking device on the side-table.

Her eyes are puffy and swollen from crying and she has to blink to clear the residual tears that blur the text, but as soon as she does she's faced with a decision. Lay in bed and continue to mope in solitude, or accept the invite from one of the juniors on the squad to go out tonight.

Santana didn't even consider leaving her fake ID in Ohio, where it would only gather dust and call softly to her Mami's weird homing sense that always revealed her stash spots. No, she had definitely not only brought it to Louisville, but had already used it several times over.

It got her into the 21 & up bars and, coupled with her 'wicked wicked words,' secured her the stamp of approval from the older girls on the squad. They'd adopted her over the other freshman, inviting her out with them pretty regularly. One in particular—the junior that texted her, Heather—had taken a special interest that Santana was still unsure whether to label 'mentor' or 'more.'

In fact, it was Heather that bought her the tab that wrecked her a few nights ago. Santana considers that fact, then considers the accompanying truth that Heather looks like she could be Brittany's older sister. Snap decision made, she taps her fingers over the touchscreen to reply.

Seriously, crying is _gross_.

— — —

"Dance with me!" The words are shouted close to Santana's ear, close enough that she makes the monumental effort to pry her eyes open and look for their source. She blinks, her vision swimming drunkenly in the dark and vibrating with the bass of the music deafening the club.

There were sweaty bodies gyrating all around her, didn't that mean they were already dancing? She finally focuses on the rich blue gaze boring into her—familiar at the same time as flawed—just as the taller blonde moves behind Santana to press against the length of her back.

"Is this okay?" This time there's no shout, only the intimate rush of hot breath over the shell of her ear; the timber of the voice all wrong, the tone completely not right.

Santana turns her head to see Heather in her peripheral. In the strobing dancefloor lights, with the alcohol and leftover traces of green-tinted smoke still riding in her blood, she can almost see the girl's profile behind her as Brittany's—_almost_.

She lets her lids flutter closed at the thought of her heart, the body behind her beginning to undulate to the rhythm of whatever song is blaring. Santana feels herself nodding consent and cracks her eyes open again to curiously watch her fingers slide up and grip the pale ones splayed over her stomach.

Brittany will understand if she doesn't call until tomorrow. She isn't even sure she was _supposed _to call tonight, the tequila shots have done a great job killing her memory.

As Santana lets her hips rock with the beat, a secret smirk spreads her lips... it doesn't hurt. With the scent of sweat and smoke all-surrounding, the firm body moving against her, the heat of the thick air in the club filling her lungs and her veins humming with color; the ache has finally subsided.

It's good enough for the moment.

— — — — —

"...do I just, like, talk? _Uh-huh, say your thing._ Uhm, hi! It's Brittany, leave me a message? Like that? _Yeah, B, that's good. Here, lemme—_" The recording shoots a bittersweet pang through Santana's chest, the memory of the afternoon she helped Brittany create it rolls all over her and she closes her eyes tightly, swallowing hard.

It's ten days since the meltdown that led to the club trip with Heather (lines were blurred but not crossed), and she's been drinking her orange juice (for its antioxidants) and only smoking weed when she's drinking (most evenings). Santana's also made sure to avoid one-on-one situations with Heather, but it somehow just makes her miss Brittany more.

The voicemail greeting beeps in her ear and she inhales like she's going to speak, then just pulls the phone away and jabs her thumb at the End key without a word. She looks around her dorm and considers doing the reading for her literature class, it _is_ Wednesday evening, after all, and that class meets Tuesday-Thursday.

She's still sitting zoned out on her bed a few moments later, mentally itemizing her assignment list for the week and actively avoiding any thoughts of where Brittany might be, when her phone chimes in her hand.

**Britt-Britt  
**_Helpin Sam w dance 4 his solo! Call u l8r  
_

_{heart}_

Oh, she's with Sam. That's why she can't answer the phone.

Santana's jaw clenches. Why couldn't she answer just for a second, just to tell her that, if all they're doing is dancing? Images of her last weekend home before she came to college flood her mind unbidden, and her stomach churns.

"_You wanna fuck her, Sam?" Santana rasps the question, Brittany's whimpering 'mm-hmm!'s muffled into the wet flesh between Santana's thighs as the blonde works her mouth. _

_Sam nods frantically in response, the wrapper in his hand ripped open and latex rolled down within seconds. Santana misses everything after he brings it to his mouth because Brittany does that thing where she rubs her tongue just __**so**__ against Santana's opening, not dipping inside, and brown eyes drift closed involuntarily._

_Santana finally forces her eyes open again to fix on Sam—standing there looking as innocent as a boy really can when he's literally got his dick in his hand—and she twists her fingers tighter in Brittany's hair, her other hand kneading at her own breast. _

"_C'mere, Trouty..." Santana beckons him closer, tugging the hair in her fist until stormy blue eyes open and lock on her own from between her legs. She flickers her gaze to Sam momentarily, immediately returning to Britt with an arched brow. "C'mon, Sam," she growls after Brittany silently answers her. "Do it."_

_A moment later, she's battling the odd duality of her response to watching Sam slide inside her girlfriend. It's sexy, there's no denying the eroticism of both beautiful blondes in motion together; but there is a deep, dry freeze aching in her sternum at the image, also._

_Brittany's fingers delve deep just as she arches back into Sam, cock-hungry in a way Santana rarely sees her anymore, and the brunette is spared the conflicting scene as her eyes clench closed with a raw moan. _

_The room is heavy with the humid scent of sweat and sex, slick dull noises of bodies impacting and panting whimpers filling any space left over until Santana flutters her lids open. She watches Sam lean in close to Brittany, pressing his lips to her ear and whispering something Santana can't make out. _

_Brittany likes it, whatever it is, and she nods excitedly before plunging her fingers inside Santana, the brunette's eyes rolling back at the warring feelings of both jagged ice and burning fire in her stomach._

Santana sits in her dorm and fumes, the casing of her phone creaking just slightly as her grip tightens around it. The tiny noise actually catches her attention in the silence of the room and she springs to her feet.

_Fuck_ that.

"Siri, call Heather." She says, clicking on speaker mode and tossing her phone to the bed. She yanks off her pajama shorts and digs through her closet for the bumblebee yellow mini—the one that's made of super stretchy material and looks like a fucking belt.

She can see Brittany and Sam in her mind's eye, choreography in the auditorium turning into making out, turning into the seared-in image of Sam's abs flexing as he thrusts into Brittany on her knees in front of him. Santana grimaces, her brain masochistically drawing up the memory of Brittany's face with the blonde's eyes clenched tight in pleasure, rocking back into the boy.

_Dancing_. What-the-fuck-ever.

"Purrswaytions tonight. You down?" Santana barks the question in lieu of greeting when Heather answers, wiggling into a black top.

"Uh, it's _Wednesday_, Lopez." There's a pause on the line and Santana's brows furrow just slightly, her boot stopped halfway pulled-on as she listens. "Of _course_ I'm down, it's two dollar you-call-it tonight—fuck yeah! You need a ride?"

— — —

Santana isn't sure what time it is, nor how many drinks she's had, nor the name of the song currently blinding her with its volume and pulsing bass line. What she _does_ know, is that Heather is basically dry-humping her—very wetly—on the dancefloor and she's not really _against_ the idea of letting her continue.

Being as drunk as she is, Santana can still convince herself that this is just dancing—like Brittany and Sam's _dancing_—despite the slick heat of Heather's mouth against her neck and the slow grinding that stopped being anything vaguely 'dance-related' at least a of couple songs ago.

"_C'mon._" The rasp is delivered into her ear just before she feels herself being pulled through the mass of moving bodies, too disoriented to think of a reason she should protest.

"Wha—?" the question doesn't get all the way out of her mouth before Heather has her pressed against the wall, a hot thigh thrust between her legs and a tongue sliding between her lips.

Santana groans despite herself, her hands coming up to dig in tightly to the muscle of Heather's shoulders. It feels _good_ to kiss someone; it's been **weeks** since she's had any physical affection and Heather's _good _at it, almost good enough to imagine she's Brittany. She indulges the kiss for seconds too long, trying to ignore the taste that isn't right or that Heather's tongue duels instead of dancing.

"I can't!" She gasps, using every shred of willpower she can find to push against Heather. Her head falls back against the wall to avoid the sight of the girl's bewildered expression. "Brittany..." she whimpers. The shape and feel of the name in her mouth trigger immediate tears, her teeth sinking into her lip while her eyes fill up. She chokes out a sob and Heather stumbles back from her, still confused.

"I—I don't understand..." the blonde begins, Santana full-on weeping now with her fist pressed her to mouth.

"Oh my god, _Brittany_..." She shakes her head, sliding away from Heather down the wall. "I'm sorry..." Santana sends one last pleading expression to the blonde before taking off running across the dance floor, pushing people out of her way to get to the exit.

She staggers the almost two miles back to the dorm from the bar, her boots pressing blisters into her heels that go unnoticed. It's close to 2am with still no call from her girlfriend and she just destroyed her relationship with not only the closest thing to a friend she has in this fucking city, but the assistant captain of her cheerleading squad.

After a night like this one, she doesn't even bother getting undressed when she gets in the room. Instead, she drops face-down on her bed and sobs into her pillow, not lifting her head until the fabric's soaked and it occurs to her that there are better ways to dehydrate.

It only takes four shots of the emergency Patron she keeps under her bed to stop the constant images parading through her brain of Sam and Brittany performing the Kama Sutra.

Two more and she's snoring, the bottle left open on the side-table.

— — — — —

Two days later, the knocking on her door goes ignored as Santana watches Brittany speak on her laptop screen. God, she misses that face. Whoever is on the other side of the door can fuck off.

If she can just focus on Brittany's open features, just listen to the cadence of her voice, maybe the world will stop feeling like she's in the fucking Twilight Zone; and not the good one with KStew's mopey ass, the scary one with shitty music.

"...and how come her name is Kitty, when she's not nice like a cat? It's false advertising. I should totally sue her." Brittany is pouting about the new Cheerio again, as she has every week since school started. "She _is_ super fierce, though... like Quinn used to be. But really mean."

Santana smiles affectionately as Brittany's furrow of contemplation appears between blonde eyebrows. "I would totally have sex with her, though." When Santana's smile falters, Brittany rushes to correct. "Only if you were okay with it, I mean! She _is_ really sexy for a junior, S. She's like if you and Quinn were squished together into one person. A Quinn-'Tana baby!"

The door is pounding again just as that increasingly familiar jagged icy feeling slices through Santana. Kitty the new Cheerio challenging Britt for top of the pyramid, Kitty the sexy Quinn and Santana baby... Kitty is going to lose her fucking whiskers if Santana has anything to say about it.

"COME _**ON**__, _SANTANA!" She recognizes the voices of Chloe and Tiffany, junior and senior from the squad, carrying through her door with the beating. She doesn't look over her shoulder until the handle jiggles. "We know you're in there, bitch! Delta Ups house, to-_night_, let's GO!"

Santana purses her lips and sends an apologetic look to Brittany before turning to yell back towards the door.

"Hang _on_, guys! Fuck's sake..."

"But we just started, S." Brittany whines and Santana feels a pang in her chest when she looks back to see the blonde's shoulders slumped and her lower lip pushed out. "Fridays, seven-thirty to nine, it's supposed to be _our_ time..." her words trail off on a sigh and Santana feels the guilt coil bitterly in her belly.

Her door bursts open the next instant and five girls—Heather surprisingly among them—tumble into the room with whoops of victory and fists pumping in the air. It's almost comical how they all freeze in place when they see Santana glaring over her shoulder at them from her desk, her laptop open in front of her with Brittany's bewildered expression full-screen.

"I guess I'll let you go..." Santana clenches her jaw at the pervading sadness in Brittany's voice and lets the irrational resentment she feels towards her—sparked by her own festering guilt, of course—bubble up. "You've got people and stuff."

Full lips pinch into a tight line and Santana glances from the corner of her eye to the members of her team, still just awkwardly standing in her dorm room listening to her conversation with her girlfriend. Not that _they_ know who Brittany is, but Santana imagines that it's probably pretty obvious.

"Yeah. Look, I'm sorry, Britts. I'll call you this weekend, okay?" Santana stares into the lens of the webcam pleadingly, willing Brittany to just let it go, just understand and hang up until later. Maybe_ later _she'll have the balls to fess up to making out with someone else. Santana is not proud to acknowledge that she'll probably never tell.

The blonde sighs and nods, bringing two fingers up to her lips and pressing a kiss. Before Brittany can blow it, Santana clicks the little red icon to disconnect the call. For several seconds afterwards she just stares at the Skype window, letting the tension in the room thicken and not turning around. One of the girls clears their throat and Tiffany speaks.

"Ah... we'll just, uhm, be out here while you—while you get ready, okay?"

Santana nods silently, still without turning, unsure of exactly which reaction to show and deciding on _none_. The cheerleaders whisper among themselves while they filter back out of her room and she relaxes her shoulders with a heavy exhale as soon as it's quiet again.

"She's—she's really pretty, San." The soft comment hangs in the air, surprising her a second time with Heather's presence. Santana has only seconds to decide how to respond to it... funny? Serious? Apologetic?

They haven't had practice in the last two days, so they haven't seen each other since Santana ran away from her at Purrswaytions.

"She looks a lot like _you_," she says the words on a chuckle without meeting the blonde's eyes, her inflection a soft jibe. She knows she chose correctly when she hazards a look over her shoulder to see pink blooming on Heather's cheeks.

"I didn't—I just mean... I didn't know, y'know?" Churning blue eyes, so familiar and yet not right, stare down at the purple rubber '_I 3 BOOBS' _bracelet she's twisting nervously between her fingers. "I didn't think to _ask_, really. I guess, just, I'm sorry?" She nods to herself and risks a glance up to Santana, the brunette's expression unreadable.

"I didn't really offer the info..." Santana murmurs, maintaining her neutral tone and staring glazed eyes at the dimming screen of her laptop. "I guess that makes it my fault. I just didn't—I wasn't ready to be that girl yet." She lets the words hang for a moment and Heather wisely waits. "...the girl with a girlfriend, y'know?" Santana looks back to see Heather nodding.

"Yeah, I do know." The blonde smiles softly and takes in a deep breath. "C'mon! Get up, get ready, let's go." She flicks the bracelet at Santana's head. "_You're_ gonna help find me a girl tonight because _you..._ are far too caliente, _Mizz_ Lopez, and I have been left unsatisfied in your wake."

She grins good-naturedly with a wink and Santana can't help but hope that maybe things will work out okay, after all.

— — — — —

It's Friday again, quarter after seven, and she's ready and waiting for Britt's Skype call. Santana's been all puffed on self-pride since around noon. She got the grade back on two mid-terms—passed, duh—_and_ she turned down an invite to a rave so she wouldn't miss this Skype date. She's extra proud of the choice because she hasn't rolled for the last three weekends and she's feeling like she deserves the release.

She knows she'll probably end up meeting Heather wherever she is later on, but still. She's showing Brittany she's still a priority, even with the distance, and it makes her feel good—like maybe she's worth the way Brittany looks at her.

Santana's scrolling through her Facebook feed while she waits when the chorus to Fleetwood Mac's Songbird begins belting out of her phone's speaker.

"Hey, what's up?"

"Santana! Baby, I'm gonna go to the planet aquarium with Artie for science class!" Brittany sounds very excited and Santana gets to enjoy the simultaneous warmth of affection and knotted ice of dread that she's coming to associate with talking to the blonde.

"Really, the planetarium, huh? What about our Skype date, Britt?" Santana tries to keep the petulant whine out of her voice, the tightening of her throat burning in several senses.

"Artie says the space show is only on Fridays. I, I thought you'd be proud of me, for studying _extra_..." Brittany's joy has completely drained from her speech and Santana immediately feels like shit, especially since she's yet to cop to her own indiscretions. She sighs heavily, letting the weighted breath carry over the line.

"Of course I'm proud of you, Britts. I just miss you is all."

"Oh! Well I'll still Skype you tomorrow.. I love you _so_ much, S!" Santana smiles at that, despite the mood, and nods to herself.

"I love you too, Brittany Pierce. Don't forget who you belong to." They say their goodbyes and as soon as they disconnect, she's texting Heather.

**You**  
_changed plans, need a ride. b ready n 15_

— — —

Her entire head feels like it's wrapped tightly in hot cotton, her eardrums are throbbing with each heartbeat, the skin of her face—even to her own fingertips—feels like the softest and most sensitized erogenous zone _ever_.

Santana lets her head tilt back on her neck and her eyes drift closed as a contented blissful smile curls her lips. She's in the middle of the dancefloor, the music is embracing her, and each vibration silks across her flesh like a lover's caress—she feels close to Britt when she's dancing like this.

Sucking her plump lower lip into her mouth, she slowly scrapes her teeth over it like Brittany loves to do, then smiles to herself at the sensation. The muscles of her jaw clench rhythmically while her awareness of the people around her oscillates from complete connectivity to euphoric oblivion.

Santana's eyes peel themselves open when she inhales deeply, the feeling of the air coursing through her and filling her lungs on par with a spiritual experience. A wild grin breaks on her lips, the expression granted an extra touch of madness by the continued cyclic flexing of her jaw and inky black swallowing her irises.

Her smile dissolves in surprise when her phone gives two quick vibrations in the front pocket of her cut-off shorts. She digs out the device with an involuntary grunt and tries to focus her glassy eyes on the bright screen.

**Britt-Britt  
**_Ur guna b so prowd! Artie sez im guna pass sci 4 sure_

It's Brittany! She loves Brittany! It's been _hours_ since she talked to Brittany...

Santana lets herself be carried by the flow of the crowd to the side of the mass of bodies, still staring intently at the glow of her phone in the darkness and trying to make sense of the words on it. According to the display, it's well after midnight and they've been at this rave for almost four hours.

Why is Brittany just now getting home from the planetarium? She squeezes one eye closed, attempting to touch the letters on-screen and type the question in reply, but her vision keeps jiggling side-to-side every few seconds and it makes the task pretty well impossible.

The device is snatched from her hand a moment later, Heather's teeth glowing an off-white cheshire cat grin in the blacklight. Santana's mouth opens to protest, but the words die on her tongue when Heather presses another pill into her palm, leaning in.

"One more?"

She's close enough that Santana feels the words breathe against her face and can see the wide black circles of Heather's pupils, the blue that unsettles her so often obscured by the ecstasy's extreme dilation. It changes the blonde's face just so, makes her somehow look slightly creepy and very sexy at the same time.

Santana closes her eyes against the tingle that shivers down her spine to pulse at her core—_No._

Even though it may feel like a great idea in this hypnotically charged moment, Santana is aware enough to know she is _not_ doing that again—not to Brittany, not to Heather, and not to _herself_. She tosses back the tab with a hard dry-swallow, then slowly licks the bitter dust leftover on her lips before fluttering her eyes open.

Heather is _right_ there, staring hotly at her mouth with her own lips parted and breath huffing out shallow and quick. Santana feels a white bolt of pleasure clench tightly in her lower belly at the sight, a whimper escaping her throat without permission. She watches Heather's breath hitch and the blonde's gaze shift sharply back and forth between her lips and eyes.

Everything around them falls away: the throb of the music, the heady scent of skin and exertion, the thrum of her muscles. All that exists is the air moving from Heather's lungs into her own, the breath they pass back and forth to each other that Santana is trying not to inhale.

The brunette feels the snap—so much less explosive than she expected—and the brief heartbeat of lucidity is framed in crystal, bright and jagged and beautiful.

The aching perfection of _kissing_, hot slick velvet and the sharp edge of teeth, is punctuated by the sure knowledge that later _this_ will be the exact moment Santana recognizes as when she disintegrated.

— — — — —

"Is this because I'm not there with you, Santana? I'm—I'm studying! I've been studying _all the time_! I'm gonna pass this time, I _swear_." Brittany cries into the phone, her pleading agony to listen to in the exact way Santana deserves. She lets every sob cut into her as deeply as possible.

"No, Brittany, I—I just think," she takes a shaky breath, trying to find words. "I think the loneliness might do us both some good, y'know? Make us appreciate each other more..." It sounds thin to her own ears, and she reminds herself that, no matter how much this hurts, the truth would be so much worse.

Santana promised herself—after waking up shameful and sex-sore in Heather's bed Saturday afternoon—that if she let Brittany go, she didn't have to tell her what happened. She tells herself that the girl would be devastated _and _they would break up if she knew, so she's sparing Brittany an additional wound.

Her stomach rolls in disgust at her own cowardice.

"I don't understand, S, I _don't_." Brittany's sobbing is unrestrained, and Santana can't help but think that sorrow is never more pure than from the innocent. "I thought we already appreciated each other."

"I know, Britts, I just," she doesn't allow herself the luxury of crying, just swallows hard for the lowest blow she has to deliver. "I just can't handle knowing you're out with all those guys while I'm so far away, okay?"

Clenching her eyes closed, she reminds herself that this is what she earned by sweating her fidelity into Heather's sheets. She visualizes the lower back pain she's _still_ feeling today is from something akin to a spinal tap—all the color and light bled from her in that bed until she was as monochrome as Pleasantville.

"Wha—Santana, I'll stop! I haven't done anything with _anyone_... I'm _yours _andproudly so, you _know that_!"

A wrenching sob rips its way out of Santana's chest before she can suppress it, Brittany's wreckage finally too much to take. She throws the phone and vaguely registers the sound of it hitting the wall somewhere around her desk.

She claps a hand over her mouth to stifle the raw sounds coming out, Santana hasn't felt pain like this since Brittany's rejection last year. Scrambling across her floor with a single-minded destination, she digs through shoes and random clothing and papers under her bed until her fingers finally wrap around the thick neck of the Patron bottle.

It takes a few swigs off the bottle before the numbness starts to set in, but when paired with the quick inhales she pulls from the little one-hitter she found in her search, her ears are humming in no time.

— — — — —

It's Wednesday, no... Thursday. Yeah, Thursday—she _thinks_, at least—and Santana can't remember how she got where she is, nor the last time she attended a class or actually slept, like... _slept. _With dreams and shit, not just unconsciousness from alcohol.

She's been some kind of intoxicated since whenever it was, though, she knows that much. Well, that, and that she's fucked up right _now_.

Looking around at well-maintained grass all around her, she tries to place where she is and whether it's early or late, all she can tell is that it's _dark _out_. _The building to her left looks an awful lot like her dorm, though, and she decides the best way to find out is to go inside.

"And _**I**_ will always _think_ of you as someone that I _love_..." She's still singing the same offkey tune she's been singing all night as she stumbles in the general direction of the entrance. She's not sure where it came from or if those are even the words, but the phrase keeps repeating in her head and it makes her think of Brittany in a way that feels warm in her stomach, so she doesn't try to stop it.

The building is indeed her dorm and Santana is pleased to note that her student ID is still tucked into the right cup of her bra; though she also discovers that her bank card is a treasure she'll have to hunt for later.

After battling the stairs up to her room on the fourth floor, she lays sideways across her bed and stares until she sees patterns in the stucco of her ceiling, the hollow ringing sound from her phone's speaker echoing off the walls.

"...do I just, like, talk? _Uh-huh, say your thing._ Uhm, hi! It's Brittany, leave me a message? Like that? _Yeah, B, that's good. Here, lemme—_"

"Brrrrrrittany..." Santana singsongs after the beep. "Brittany Brittany oxen-free! Wh—why aren't you answerin' your _phone_?! It's like..." She giggles throatily and rolls over to see the phone, squinting at the display and squeezing one eye closed. "Four third an' two AY-em on Wednesday. Or no, _Thursday_—orone of those, but I love you evvvvvvryday!"

Santana sighs and tries to remember why she called Brittany in the first place, her forehead dropping to the bedspread and her eyes drifting closed as she hums in concentration. She's just so _tired_.

"Why won't you answer your phonnnnnnne, Britt-Britt?" The whine pushes out all nasally, and she doesn't even mind because she _knows_ there was something she needed to say, she's certain... "I _love_ you..." Oh, the song!

"And _**I**_ will always _think_ of you as someone that I _love_..." She sings it softly a couple times through, her voice drifting quieter as she starts to doze off with the phone still recording beside her.

— — —

Early the next morning Brittany sits cross-legged and unmoving in the middle of her bed, her phone directly in front of her on the blanket. Santana's drunken voicemail sings from the speaker while fat tears slick silently down Brittany's cheeks, collecting at her chin before dropping softly to her chest and lap.

She's played it through eight times already. Even though Santana was drunk, Brittany doesn't feel anywhere _close_ to being done listening to the softly sung words of love. She knows her mom is going to come to wake her up for school in the next fifteen minutes, though.

Brittany sucks at math, but she's pretty sure that's _at least_ ten or twenty more plays.


End file.
